Pigs are valuable biomedical models for studying Aspergillus fumigatus immunity

Invasive fungal infections with Aspergillus fumigatus are difficult to diagnose and a major cause of life‐threatening pneumonia in immunocompromised patients. The role of fungus‐specific Th cells for anti‐fungal immunity is still unclear and addressing these cells directly in the lung parenchyma of compromised patients remains problematic. In this issue, Zhang et al. have established the pig as a new biomedical model to study T cell immunity against airborne A. fumigatus. In nature, domestic pigs demonstrate circulating, fungus‐specific T cells highly comparable to their human counterparts with regard to frequency and phenotype. When experimentally exposed to high‐doses of conidia, fungus‐specific T cells accumulated in the lungs of healthy pigs and increased in the circulation. In turn, a short immunosuppressive treatment before exposure permanently abrogated the lung‐specific infiltration of A. fumigatus‐directed Th cells indicating the need to study anti‐fungal immunity directly at the site of infection.

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期刊综述

猪是研究烟曲霉免疫力的有价值的生物医学模型

烟曲霉的侵袭性真菌感染难以诊断，是免疫受损患者危及生命的肺炎的主要原因。真菌特异性Th细胞在抗真菌免疫中的作用仍不清楚，直接在受损患者的肺实质中处理这些细胞仍然存在问题。在本期中，Zhang等。已经建立了猪作为一种新的生物医学模型，以研究其对空中烟曲霉的T细胞免疫力。在自然界中，家猪表现出循环的，真菌特异性的T细胞，就频率和表型而言，它们与人类的T细胞高度可比。当实验暴露于高剂量的分生孢子时，真菌特异性T细胞在健康猪的肺中积累，并在循环中增加。反过来，在暴露前进行短暂的免疫抑制治疗可永久消除针对烟曲霉的Th细胞的肺特异性浸润，这表明需要直接在感染部位研究抗真菌免疫力。